Facilities Management for Schools & Universities

Schools and universities maintain some of the most varied building stock in the country — Victorian blocks, 1960s system-built classrooms, PFI-era additions, and modern labs, often on the same site. The condition consequences are now well documented: the Department for Education's own survey put the repair bill for England's schools at £11.4 billion, and the RAAC crisis showed how quickly a latent building issue can close classrooms.

Unlike commercial buildings, the maintenance calendar is brutal: major work compresses into holiday windows, and term-time failures — heating in January, kitchen extract at lunchtime — have immediate operational impact. Site teams are small, budgets are tight, and responsibility structures (local authority, academy trust, university estates department) add their own complexity when buildings and their records change hands.

PM Assist turns the documents you have into answers you can use. Upload O&M manuals, certificates, surveys, and drawings for each site, then ask in plain English — "when is the boiler service due at the junior site?", "where is the gas isolation for the science block?", "what did the last legionella risk assessment flag?". Answers come with source citations, so they work for governors' reports and compliance audits alike.

For multi-site trusts and university campuses, that means one searchable knowledge base instead of a different filing system per building — and a soft landing whenever buildings or staff change hands.